Walking my talk… and limping badly

Curiosity has surely got to be one of the most powerful tools we have when exploring symptoms.

Rather than rushing to find the explanation, I’ve learned to stay with the questions and remain open. More often than not, it is in that space that a deeper understanding begins to emerge.

Last week, I found myself walking my own talk… and then limping rather badly.

The story begins last Saturday, when I undertook the whole-body walking training with the WALX team in preparation for leading natural back care and spine health programmes with them. There were four of us in the group, together with the instructor, and on several occasions she invited me to share a physiotherapy perspective.

The following day brought more encouraging news. I’m one step closer to securing a lovely new clinic studio, ready for the autumn.

After what has been a challenging twelve months, it finally felt as though life was beginning to move forwards.

On Monday, buoyed by that sense of possibility, I made another important decision. I would start looking for somewhere new to live. My current accommodation was only ever planned to be temporary, and deciding it’s time to leave felt significant.

Then, early on Tuesday morning, something completely unexpected happened.

I paused at the bottom of the stairs, deciding whether to go into the kitchen for more water or head upstairs to my room. As I stood there quietly thinking, with no obvious movement whatsoever, I felt excruciating pain explode through my right calf.

The pain took my breath away.

Within moments, my calf began to swell.

Although I considered myself extremely low risk for a deep vein thrombosis (DVT), the sudden onset and rapid swelling meant there was only one sensible course of action. I phoned 111 and was advised to attend hospital immediately.

Thankfully, the investigations ruled out a DVT.

Clinically, apart from the unusual onset, everything pointed towards an acute calf muscle tear, remarkably similar to one I sustained years ago while kickboxing.

Once I was reassured that the serious causes had been excluded, I became fascinated.

From a purely mechanical perspective, there was no obvious explanation. The injury hadn’t occurred while I was walking or climbing the stairs. It happened while I was standing quietly, deep in thought.

Years ago, as a die-hard physiotherapist, I would probably have been sceptical that such severe pain, swelling and bruising could occur without an obvious mechanical event.

Today, my perspective has evolved.

Through my training in Lifestyle Prescriptions®, I have learned that our bodies don’t simply experience physical events. They respond to our whole lived experience.

Looking back, it had been an emotionally significant few days. I had experienced recognition, opportunity, hope, uncertainty, freedom, responsibility and vulnerability. There was a great deal to process, both practically and emotionally.

Within the Lifestyle Prescriptions® framework, these are the kinds of life events that are worth paying attention to. Could my “injury” represent what may be described as a healing peak?

After several years of uncertainty, I was finally approaching the point where I could genuinely put my best foot forward again. Recognition from the WALX team, the prospect of my own clinic, and the decision to leave an environment in which I had felt stuck all represented profound shifts.

Could my calf have appeared precisely at the point where a long-standing conflict was beginning to resolve?

Or perhaps it wasn’t the clinic at all.

Perhaps it was the decision to leave my current accommodation after so long feeling trapped, with no obvious way forward. Deciding to leave may itself have represented a profound resolution.

Or perhaps leaving was absolutely the right decision, but trying to do so immediately created a different kind of tension – a conflict between freedom and security, between trusting my instincts and recognising that practical planning still matters.

I don’t know. Perhaps none of these possibilities is the answer, and there’s another explanation entirely.

But what I’ve learned over the years is that remaining curious often opens doors that certainty keeps firmly closed.

If this article has left you curious about your own symptoms, I’d be delighted to explore them with you.

Drawing on more than 40 years’ clinical experience alongside the Lifestyle Prescriptions®  framework, we’ll create space to ask better questions. More often than not, it’s in that space that a deeper understanding begins to emerge.